According to Lewis & Clark College president Barry Glassner, a leading sociologist and author of The Culture of Fear, "Most Americans are living in the safest place at the safest time in human history.” So why are so many Americans, among them many of the new patients coming in to see me, feeling so anxious?

Part Six: Without Opioids, a Decent Life becomes Impossible

When Jeremy came to see me in my office last year, his demeanor said it all: Rumpled jacket, pained expression, and the quiet, tremulous voice of a man who never in his entire life believed he’d wind up in a therapist’s office. “My doctor abruptly stopped prescribing me Oxy,” he told me when I asked him what was wrong, “and the pain is making me crazy.” As I looked into his eyes, and saw the depth of his emotional and physical pain, my own heart began to ache as well.